India to raise prisoner’s death issue in Pakistan at top level

India has asked its envoy in Pakistan to take up at the “highest possible level” with their foreign office the issue of early transportation of mortal remains of an Indian national who died in Pakistan on Monday.

“On Kirpal Singh, our acting high commissioner in Islamabad has been instructed to seek a meeting at the highest possible level in the Pakistan foreign office this forenoon to seek early transportation of the mortal remains,” external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said on Wednesday.

“He will also ask for official information on cause of death, postmortem report etc,” he added.

Kirpal Singh, 54, died at a hospital in Pakistan’s Kot Lakhpat Jail. He was alleged to have been involved in a bombing at Faisalabad Railway Station in 1991 and sentenced to death for spying and terrorism in Pakistan.

He was transferred to a hospital on Monday after suddenly his health deteriorated, jail officials said.

Pakistani authorities said Kirpal Singh died due to heart failure.

In 2013, an Indian death row convict Sarabjit Singh was attacked by two other inmates at the Kot Lakhpat Jail. He later succumbed to his wounds at the hospital.

On Tuesday, a sister of Kirpal Singh protested at the Attari-Wagah integrated checkpost on the India-Pakistan border over his death.

“My brother Kirpal has been murdered just like Sarabjit was earlier. The Pakistani jail authorities are responsible for his death,” Jagir Kaur said during the protest.

She was accompanied by many other protestors, among them Dalbir Kaur, the elder sister of Sarabjit Singh.

The family demanded that Kirpal Singh’s body be handed over to them for cremation at his native village in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district. (IANS)